The sec­ond gen­er­a­tion of the highly suc­cess­ful BMW X1 model which sold more than 730,000 units world­wide, the new BMW X 1, takes to the stage with a body de­sign straight out of the BMW X model mould. The BMW X1 that blazed the trail for the new pre­mium com­pact seg­ment boats an even more po­tent shot of Sports Ac­tiv­ity Ve­hi­cle DNA with the ad­di­tion of its sec­ond gen­er­a­tion model. With an in­te­rior that of­fers sig­nif­i­cantly more space for pas­sen­gers and lug­gage, a cut­ting-edge pre­mium am­bi­ence and func­tion­al­ity, grounded in solid en­gi­neer­ing the new model is the per­fect com­pact cross­over op­tion for BMW fans. Four-cylin­der en­gines from the BMW Group’s lat­est gen­er­a­tion of power units, an ef­fi­ciency-op­ti­mized ver­sion of the BMW xDrive in­tel­li­gent all wheel- drive sys­tem and newly de­vel­oped chas­sis tech­nol­ogy all help to pal­pa­bly en­hance sport­ing abil­ity and ride com­fort com­pared to the out­go­ing model and get this the car is more en­ergy ef­fi­cient too; with fuel con­sump­tion and emis­sions re­duced by up to 17 per cent, model-on-model.

Along­side its mar­ket-lead­ing dy­nam­ics and ef­fi­ciency, a host of in­no­va­tive equip­ment fea­tures also help to se­cure the new BMW X1 its stand-out po­si­tion in the seg­ment. Among the items on the op­tions list are full-LED head­lights, Dy­namic Damper Con­trol, the BMW Head-Up Dis­play and the Driv­ing As­sis­tant Plus sys­tem.

Rugged pro­por­tions, a pow­er­ful pres­ence and dy­namic lines lend the new BMW X1 a com­mand­ing ap­pear­ance and high­light its sta­tus as the youngest mem­ber of the BMW X model fam­ily. The new model has grown in height com­pared to its pre­de­ces­sor (+53 mil­lime­ters), which has helped in­crease the spa­cious­ness of the in­te­rior whilst sig­nif­i­cantly raised seat­ing po­si­tion (+36 mil­lime­ters at the front, +64 mil­lime­ters at the rear) op­ti­mizes the driver’s view out over the road.

The new in­te­rior de­sign has cre­ated a sub­stan­tially roomier in­te­rior adding an ad­di­tion 37 mil­lime­ters of rear seat need space in the stan­dard spec­i­fi­ca­tion and by up to 66 mil­lime­ters with the op­tion­ally ad­justable rear seat. Stor­age space has in­creased too with an ad­di­tional 85 liters ex­tra, bring boot ca­pac­ity up to 505 liters. Fold­ing down the stan­dard-fit­ted 40:20:40 rear seat back­rest, which can also be spec­i­fied in an­glead­justable form as an op­tion, al­lows load ca­pac­ity to be ex­panded to as much as 1,550 liters. The op­tional fold­ing front pas­sen­ger seat back­rest and a rear seat bench which can slide 13 cen­time­ters fore and aft of­fer ad­di­tional vari­abil­ity.

The in­te­rior de­sign of the new BMW X1 com­bines the driver-fo­cused cock­pit de­sign that has be­come a hall­mark of the brand’s mod­els with touches

pro­mot­ing au­thor­i­ta­tive, SAV-style driv­ing plea­sure and a con­tem­po­rary pre­mium am­bi­ence. Stan­dard equip­ment in­cludes air con­di­tion­ing, an au­dio sys­tem with USB and AUX-in sock­ets, and the iDrive op­er­at­ing sys­tem, whose 6.5-inch dis­play is in­te­grated into the in­stru­ment panel in free­stand­ing mon­i­tor form. Mean­while, the Ad­van­tage, Sport Line, xLine and M Sport pack­ages avail­able as an al­ter­na­tive to stan­dard spec­i­fi­ca­tion open the door for tar­geted in­di­vid­u­al­iza­tion.

Com­mand­ing and ver­sa­tile in the BMW X fam­ily mould

Its raised seat­ing po­si­tion, in­creased space, stylish pre­mium am­bi­ence and even greater in­te­rior vari­abil­ity un­der­line the sta­tus of the new BMW X1 as an as­sured, multi-tal­ented ad­di­tion to the seg­ment. The even bet­ter view it af­fords the driver over the road en­sures ef­fort­less driv­ing plea­sure, and there are also clear par­al­lels with BMW Sports Ac­tiv­ity Ve­hi­cles and Sports Ac­tiv­ity Coupes in higher ve­hi­cle classes in terms of the style of its in­te­rior de­sign and range of op­tional driver as­sis­tance sys­tems.

The ver­sa­til­ity typ­i­cal of a BMW X model is ex­pressed not only in the driv­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of the X1 on var­i­ous types of ter­rain, but also in the way its in­te­rior can be used. The new BMW X1 of­fers more space for pas­sen­gers and lug­gage and raises vari­abil­ity another notch. The rear seat bench comes as stan­dard with a three-sec­tion split/fold­ing back­rest and is avail­able as an op­tion with the abil­ity to slide for­wards and back­wards by 13 cen­time­ters. A fold­ing front pas­sen­ger seat back­rest can also be spec­i­fied as an op­tion.

The pass­ing of the ba­ton from the orig­i­nal BMW X1 to the sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion model en­cap­su­lates a far­reach­ing ma­tur­ing process clearly ex­pressed in the de­sign of both the ex­te­rior and the in­te­rior. Ro­bust pro­por­tions, pow­er­fully sculpted sur­faces and de­sign fea­tures typ­i­cal of a Sports Ac­tiv­ity Ve­hi­cle lend the new model an as­sured ap­pear­ance and im­me­di­ately iden­tify it as a mem­ber of the BMW X model fam­ily. Its dy­namic lines when viewed from the side im­bue the new BMW X1 with a dis­tinc­tive, fresh and youth­ful aura.

The en­gine pow­er­ing the new BMW X1 sDrive18i de­vel­ops a max­i­mum out­put of 100 kW/136hp and peak torque of 220 Nm. Its in­stan­ta­neous pulling pow­er­en­ables ac­cel­er­a­tion of 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 9.7 sec­onds. Av­er­age fuel con­sump­tion for the BMW X1 sDrive18i, which comes as stan­dard with the like­wise newly de­vel­oped eight-speed Step­tronic trans­mis­sion, is be­tween 5.3 and 5.6 liters per 100 kilo­me­ters, while CO2e­mis­sions stand at 119 grams per kilo­me­ter (in the EU test cy­cle, de­pend­ing on the tire for­mat spec­i­fied). Avail­able as stan­dard in the BMW X1 sDrive18i is the newly de­vel­oped eight-speed Step­tronic trans­mis­sion. The new ver­sion of the au­to­matic stands out with its im­proved in­ter­nal ef­fi­ciency, in­creased smooth­ness and more dy­namic gear changes.

The chas­sis tech­nol­ogy of the orig­i­nal X1 has been to­tally re­de­vel­oped for the new model and now com­prises sin­gle-joint strut sus­pen­sion at the front and a multi-link rear axle. Alu­minium swivel bear­ings, as well as axle car­ri­ers and con­trol arms made from high­strength steel, re­duce weight and in­crease the rigid­ity of the front axle, which in turn helps to en­sure an ag­ile turn-in re­sponse and di­rec­tion-chang­ing pre­ci­sion.

The rear axle also em­ploys a high pro­por­tion of high­strength steels. Tube-shaped anti-roll bars at the front and rear axle, in­no­va­tive axle mount­ing and spe­cially tuned elasto-kine­mat­ics con­trib­ute to the agility and

ride com­fort of the new BMW X1, as do the con­nec­tion of the dampers to the body via so­phis­ti­cated three-way sup­port mounts.

The new BMW X1 is equipped as stan­dard with Ser­votronic speed-sen­si­tive steer­ing as­sis­tance, while a new item on the op­tions list is Vari­able Sport­sS­teer­ing. This sys­tem al­lows park­ing and turn­ing-off ma­neu­vers to be com­pleted safely and com­fort­ably with lit­tle steer­ing ef­fort, and at higher speeds driv­ers can also look for­ward to the steer­ing pre­ci­sion and straight­line sta­bil­ity for which BMW is renowned.

The Driv­ing Ex­pe­ri­ence Con­trol switch on the cen­tre con­sole al­lows the driver to give the car’s set-up an even sportier, more com­fort-ori­ented or ef­fi­ciency op­ti­mized char­ac­ter. Call­ing up COM­FORT, SPORT or ECO PRO mode at the touch of a but­ton adapts the re­sponses of the ac­cel­er­a­tor pedal and steer­ing. The shift char­ac­ter­is­tics of the au­to­matic trans­mis­sion and the damper set­tings are also ad­justed if the rel­e­vant equip­ment has been spec­i­fied.

The en­hanced func­tional ef­fec­tive­ness of all pow­er­train com­po­nents, in­tel­li­gent en­ergy man­age­ment, the rig­or­ous ap­pli­ca­tion of BMW Light­weight tech­nol­ogy and far­reach­ing mea­sures de­signed to op­ti­mize aero­dy­nam­ics all play a role in en­sur­ing the BMW X1 gen­er­a­tion change has brought with it sig­nif­i­cant ad­vances in ef­fi­ciency. The in­no­va­tions de­vel­oped un­der the BMW Ef­fi­cient Dy­nam­ics ban­ner form an over­all pack­age that de­liv­ers greater driv­ing plea­sure com­bined with up to 17 per cent lower fuel con­sump­tion and emis­sions, de­pend­ing on the model, plus lower weight yet ex­tra rigid­ity for the body and chas­sis.

The new BMW X1 is fit­ted as stan­dard not only with the iDrive op­er­at­ing sys­tem with high-res­o­lu­tion 6.5inch colour dis­play, but also an au­dio sys­tem with six loud­speak­ers and an AUX-in socket and USB in­ter­face, a hands-free fa­cil­ity for tele­phones, the Driv­ing Ex­pe­ri­ence Con­trol switch and air con­di­tion­ing.